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Monday, February 4, 2013

The Atheist IQ Scam Part 1

Einstein believed in God.

There's a huge lie being propagated about the net that religious people have lower IQ's than atheists. This is one of the major points being made the site that we looked at last time, the Psychology Today blog tended by Satoshi Kanazawa. That article and study are cited everywhere. They are repeated on every atheist blog and website ad infinitum, not always approvingly.I promised I would deal with the IQ scam and I shall. The Study sited by Kanasawa is the Lynn, Harvey, Nyborg study. Nyborg is the main the figure. There are actually two studies by this same group. One of them deals with data gathered by department of labor (National Longitudinal surveys) the other study takes the data an analyzes it country by country. So one is about do religious children have higher IQ's version atheist (of course they say "no!"). The other one (linked above) is about do religoius countries have more smart people than atheist countries (of cousre they say not, atheist countries--wherever those are--have more smart people). These studies are ubiquitous. From this one set of data that the alleged researchers did not compile the vast army of atheists are willing to pat themselves on the back and assume they are smarter than people who believe in God.

The fact that the group did not collect their own data but used department of labor statistics is a problem because they data was not gathered from a study designed to measure or compare the intelligence of believers vs. non believers. There is no study design there. Before turning to that, however, it would be more helpful to examine the old data. Before the Nyborg study there was an atheist website that tried to prove the same thing, it got a great deal of attention, until I destroyed it. I proved that they lied about one of the studies.

The original data was from "Free Inquiry" Spring of 1986. This forms the basis of the whole IQ scam. It's been floating around for years and thousands of atheists have been brain washed by its' lie. It is a lie as I am about to demonstrate. It's been floating around in the form of several websites that take their ques from this one. The sites its on is called 'the liberalism resurgent, by Steve Kangas." That's the site I linked to for my rebuttal page way back years ago when I first put it up. All he does is list a bunch of studies that supposedly show that atheists have higher IQs than religious people. These were all done with school children, so there's no way to know how many of the same kinds in the study who said they were atheists became religious in adulthood.It's an easy guess that many did because that happens a lot so it would be important to know that. Moreover, notice he places the Hoge study (#15) Hastings and Hoge, 1967, 1974 (actually two studies) in the category of those that back his view. But I received literature form Dr. Francis a researcher in UK university who did several studies on the issue, this literature showed that Hoge showed no correlation between intelligence and religious belief, which contradicts the study and indicates that Kangas either lied or made a blunder. One can see from the rest of the literature that the thesis Kangas is working on is totally ravaged by the facts from just listing the studies that Francis sent in his study:What follows is reproduction of my page:
The site also presents 17 studies giving the impression that all 17 support the thesis that more successful and higher scoring students tend to be non-believing students, while religious students score lower. Then they actually argue that this is a reliable guide to which world view is correct! (Appeal to success, similar to appeal to authority!)

But if we divide them into categories according to what they actually say, we see a much different picture. The first number is the counting number, to show how many are in each section, the number in parenthesis is the actual number given in the list on the website.

2. (#9) Michael Argyle, 1958
Concluded that "although intelligent children grasp religious concepts earlier, they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and intelligent students are much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs."

3. (#14) Robert Wuthnow, 1978

Of 532 students, 37 percent of Christians, 58 percent of apostates, and 53 percent of non-religious scored above average on SATs.[but wait, there's no comparison of the scores, so even though only 38% of Christians as opposed to 58% of apostates scored above average, what if the Christians scored way above average and the apostates only slightly?]

Doesn't show how conclusion was arrived at 2 (#2.) Hilding Carlsojn, 1933
Study of 215 students showed that "there is a tendency for the more intelligent undergraduate to be sympathetic towards atheism."

Doesn't really say "sympathetic" means self-identified as atheists, nor does it show how he arrived at his conclusion.

4 (11.) Young, Dustin and Holtzman, 1966
Average religiosity decreased as GPA rose.8. Brown and Love, 1951 At the University of Denver, tested 613 male and female students. The mean test scores of non-believers was 119 points, and for believers it was 100. The non-believers ranked in the 80th percentile, and believers in the 50th. Their findings "strongly corroborate those of Howells."

5 (13.) C. Plant and E. Minium, 1967
The more intelligent students were less religious, both before entering college and after 2 years of college.[Doesn't say how they determined this]The interesting thing about this is, there are actually more studies that have counter findings than there are supporting the thesis, which give enough information to be clear about how they obtained it (with four that are too vague about this to consider).

6. (#4) Thomas Symington, 1935
Tested 400 young people in colleges and church groups. He reported, "There is a constant positive relation in all the groups between liberal religious thinking and mental ability There is also a constant positive relation between liberal scores and intelligenceŠ"Note: This guy with the website habitually assumes that liberal religious views are not religious views and counts liberal religious thinkers as unbelievers, which is absurd and dishonest; he does it with this study and on page 2, you will see he does it a lot.

Studies presented that actually count as evidence counter to the claim.

2. (#6) A. R. Gilliland, 1940
At variance with all other studies, found "little or no relationship between intelligence and attitude toward god."[Obviously its not really at variance with "all" others since I just listed several others that don’t make those findings, and little or no relationship counts as negative evidence.]

3.(#10) Jeffrey Hadden, 1963
Found no correlation between intelligence and grades. This was an anomalous finding, since GPA corresponds closely with intelligence. Other factors may have influenced the results at the University of Wisconsin. [counts against his assumption that grades = intelligence so he can't measure intelligence through the studies that make that assumption. Also, what does he site in the face of this one to prove that graces indicate intelligence? And what about motivations?] (I suggest a sentence such as [This study discounts his assumption…)
4.(#12) James Trent, 1967
Polled 1400 college seniors. Found little difference, but high-ability students in his sample group were over-represented.[so they polled them? What did they use as a measure of intelligence? Doesn't say. But it does say they found no relation, or little, and virtually admit the sample is worthless so this counts as negative or at best as inconclusive.]

5. (#15) Hastings and Hoge, 1967, 1974
Polled 200 college students and found no significant correlations.[negative correlation is clearly negative evidence, there is no relation]Notice: the Francis study lists Hoge under the category of those that show no correlation between intelligence and religion, but that website lists it as positive to their thesis.
6. (#17) Wiebe and Fleck, 1980
Studied 158 male and female Canadian university students. They reported "nonreligious S's tended to be strongly intelligent" and "more intelligent than religious S's."[dosen't hint at how this was determined]

Studies not on the web site (listed by Francis) which found either no corrollation or postive corrollation

3) Young et al., (1066) 32 item scale by Holtzman and young (66) five percent random sample of native born full time students at University of Texas, "where they found no significant relationship between mean attitude scores and cumulative grade points."

5) Francis (1979)using frequency of prayer and church attendance) 2272 school children between 9-11,"found no relationship between school assigned IQ's and religious behavior after controlling for paternal social class."

7) Francis ('98) the study these studies are sited in, using sample of 711 students, the Francis Religious attitude Scale and standard IQ tests Francis again found no correlation.

Positive Correllation

1) Pratt (1937) among 3040 students at regional state college, taking denominational affiliation as sign of religiosity, "found that non-affiliates recorded lower mean scores on the American council Examination than any students affiliated to any denominational group."

2) Rummell (1934) also using denominational affiliation 1194 students at University of Missouri. "He found that non-affiliates recorded lower mean scores on his scholastic index compared with Methodists and Episcopalians."

3) Corey (1940) 234 Freshmen University of Wisconsin positive correlation between scores on the Ohio State Psychological Examination and the Thurstone scale of attitude toward God. "'The more intelligent were more favorably inclined toward God.'"

Counting all the studies together, both those presented as negative and those presented by Francis which are either neutral or positive, 17 to 6 in favor of the thesis being unproven. But more importantly, Hoge was listed wrongly, so what else can we not trust about those studies? Moreover, the sample size for the positive or neutral correlations are much larger in many instances. None of the negative sample sizes come close.

The Positive or neutral studies would tend to be the better studies since they have more with larger samples sizes, and Francis controls for the Freudian bias which taints all the negative studies. Poythres (1975) sets the differences within the context of psychoanalytic theory.(Francis 188). We also notice that the negative studies tend to be older, ranging mainly form the 1930s to 1968, while all of the positive or neutral studies tend to be set in the 1960s to the 80s and one as recent as 98. This is explained by Hoge in terms of increasing socioeconomic status and greater exposure of religious people to new ideas at a younger age.

"The long discussed shock of freshmen encountering Atheistic professors at college and the transition problems from childhood beliefs to intellectually defensible beliefs have been reduced in recent years. Today the shock comes earlier and with less force than in decades past."(in Francis 188). (This capitalization is a matter of mild controversy. If Atheism is a religion, then it is capitalized as Buddhist, Moslems and Christianity are.)

We really have to ask ourselves, in studying students, especially freshmen in college, they are getting kids when they are the most rebellious? For those in early college they are going off to school for the first time, away from home, no longer under the strictures of Mom and Dad, they tend to rebel against Mom and Dad. It's a time of experimentation. Naturally we should expect to find that bright kids are experimenters, that they are willing to try new ideas. Secondly, how long did these kids remain unbelieving? How many are no in middle or even old age having had a life time of religious commitment gained in graduate school or beyond? Not a single one of these studies gave any indication of being longitudinal! That is extremely important, because it makes sense that students in late high school and early college will be rebellious and more inclined to question their upbringing. How many of them were actually still atheists 20 or 30 years latter? We don't know and not a single one of the studies even tried to find out. For all we know the vast majority of them might have become believers in 10 years out of college! In fact we have good reason to suspect that this is the case; after they got married and started raising families, they probably began to believe again, and this seems to be the pattern. That conclusion would also be supported by the quotation form Hoge above, the shock of leaving home, encountering atheist professors, dealing for the first time with serious challenge of new ideas could for time lead the unwary into doubt, but latter they recover.

In part 2 I will deal with the current study, Nyborg in a couple of days.

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.

He stated several times elsewhere that he did not believe in a "personal" God. What he meant by that is the sort of God that the Bible describes and that most religious leaders preach about. Not the sort of "God" that Einstein apparently believed in, one with as much personality as a rock or the force of gravity.

"The outcome of this doubt and befogged speculation about time and space is a cloak beneath which hides the ghastly apparition of atheism," Boston's Cardinal William Henry O'Connell said.

-

As to whether liberal religion is really atheism, it does sometimes get very close to being no religion at all. Why not ask the more hardcore sorts of believers some time?

Metacrock, you ought to look more closely at what Einstein called "God". I do wish to warn you that you won't like what you find.

Loren, this just highlights how ignorant you are and most atheists are. You think the idea of an impersonal God is some big new idea I never though to of. Little do you know I spent four years in a smeinary studying with one of the major theologians in process theoloyg.

I know you don't know what that means but go look it up and you will find process theology protists an impersonal God. Meaning I spent four years studying that idea.

There's also an article by my hero Paul Tillich about Einstein's view and I'm using that article in my second book. Now if you knoew anything about Tillich you would know that he did not like the concept of a personal God either.

atheists are not comfortable with a personal God either. If you were to consider the possibility you would reject it with the same feeling of being defeating and submitting to God that you hate anyway.

But what you are too shallow to understand is that the picture is much more complex than that. It's a simple matter personal vs impersonal.

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.

He stated several times elsewhere that he did not believe in a "personal" God. What he meant by that is the sort of God that the Bible describes and that most religious leaders preach about. Not the sort of "God" that Einstein apparently believed in, one with as much personality as a rock or the force of gravity.

that is still too much God for you and for most atheists.

"The outcome of this doubt and befogged speculation about time and space is a cloak beneath which hides the ghastly apparition of atheism," Boston's Cardinal William Henry O'Connell said.

-

As to whether liberal religion is really atheism, it does sometimes get very close to being no religion at all. Why not ask the more hardcore sorts of believers some time?

the reason you think impersonal God and liberals are close to atheism is because you don't understand belief in God in the first place. You think belief is about a big man in the sky and it's a thing and it's adding a fact tot he universe, all of which shows how stupid atheism is.

You mean that you wasted four years of your life on yet another empty idea that you are not smart enough to see for the sham that it is! Lol!

I hope that you at least got your tuition free because of your special needs!

I am assuming that since my last few comments have not passed your hypocritical "moderation" that I am banned. That is such a predictable action of someone with a small mind.

You have no answer for the advanced Unicornology argument or the published Einstein quote that I provided with references, so you prohibit the discussion. You are so blinded by your "beliefs" that you can't see how intellectually bankrupt that action is. You might as well have a pulpit, because you deal with difficult questions the same way, by ignoring them.

Hate equates to stifling the conversation, and only allowing the theocratic view. If you disagree, ask Copernicus and Newton how they felt when the church nearly killed them for an opposing view.

The little trick atheists like Rex and Loren are pulling is that all the quotes pertain to "personal God" not any concept of God all but personal.

Of cousre since they know 0 about theology, they think that's a big deal. They think the theologians are wetting thier paints everyone someone somoene says God is not personal. These mental fly weights have read 0 pages of work by Tillich or another major theologian. As I told Lorden (REx hasnt' the brain power to get the importance of it) Tillich met Einstein went to a conference with him wrote a paper agreeing with him.

this is does not make either of them an atheist. Einstein was not an atheist. he was not an atheist.

they think it's a big deal that he didn't bleieve in "personal God" and it's the personal God they despise. it's the personal God Loren and Rex shit in their paints thinking about. so they think it really matters.

The dispose personal God with all their little brainless hearts, so they don't get it when intellectually superior people say "Eisenstein was not an atheist because they think "he must be just right put against being one because that's' what personal is.

Nope God can be impersonal.

Einstein said:

Einstein himself stated quite clearly that he did not believe in a personal God:

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."4

To Rex and Loren and people who don't give a rat's ass about truth or specificity and are just looking to feel validated in their hatred of God, they will take that sas "yea that's just about an atheist." It's not!

However, it would also seem that Einstein was not an atheist, since he also complained about being put into that camp:

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."5

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."6

"Hate equates to stifling the conversation, and only allowing the theocratic view. If you disagree, ask Copernicus and Newton how they felt when the church nearly killed them for an opposing view."

what kind of an idiot are we dealing with there?

This is so appropriate because it shows how stupid he is and how unwilling to the check the facts atheist are.

NEITHER OF THESE MEN EVER WERE THREADED WITH LOSING THEIR LIVES BY THE CHURCH. NEWTON WAS A CHRISTIAN HE NEVER SAID ANYTHING TO IMPLY OTHERWISE AND HE DID NOT QUITE THE CHURCH.

Newton worked with Bolye to make scinece into a form of Christian apologetic. yes, he did. Look it up. read the Newtonians by Margarete Jacob. Also read Floris Cohen.

this was my dissertation topic!

the thing about Copernicus is he never got in any trouble for his system. Because he didn't try to oppose chruch authority. He just sold his system as a hypothetical math answer to problems of the Ptolemaic system.

This is so ignorant. Rex you really need to start reading and learning. You just assume there were bunch of science types being persecuted there are two expatiates. There were not others. It was not a major deal.

Rex, I'm disappointed that your comment was all vilification and no content.

That aside, Metacrock, I don't think that you appreciate what a great heresy an impersonal God is. Think of it. A "God" with as much personality as a rock or the force of gravity. Yes, think of it. Think very hard about it.

Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jewish community and vilified as an atheist. Why did that happen, O great expert on the history of ideas? If every theologian agreed with him, why didn't he become Grand Rabbi or something?

Look at how the Christian God is described in pastors' sermons and catechisms and the like. Look in the Bible. Does anyone ridicule the idea of God having a personality as some silly pagan idolatrous idea? Also, how the theologians themselves have long described that entity, as having persons and wills. If a theologian had claimed what Spinoza and Einstein had claimed, he could have gotten burned at the stake over much of the history of Christianity. Sir Isaac Newton was lucky to be living not long after burning heretics at the stake had gone out of style, because he could have gotten burned at the stake for denying the Trinity.

So from the Argument from Popularity, which you are so fond of using against atheism, an impersonal God loses VERY badly.

That aside, Metacrock, I don't think that you appreciate what a great heresy an impersonal God is. Think of it. A "God" with as much personality as a rock or the force of gravity. Yes, think of it. Think very hard about it.

this is it's important to know something about theoloy. It'sn ot just a game where I you don't know anyting, you you say it back. you reallyk don't know anything about it.

You have no training. you have never read any theology and you so unintellectual that after telling you this a hundred times you still have not read any. If you had any any intellectual nature at all you would least be curious enough to read some.

this means you don't know about process theology. It's the mos widely studied and believed liberal version of theism there is. Its' the mayor liberal view you don't' even know that it centers around an impersonal view of God.

you don't know that because you don't study. You have no authority to tell me, (who has a Masters degree in theology) what to think about the nature of a subject that I am qualified as an academic to teach and you are not!

Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jewish community and vilified as an atheist. Why did that happen, O great expert on the history of ideas? If every theologian agreed with him, why didn't he become Grand Rabbi or something?

Because, Jews were excluded from the intellectual life of Europe in his day. Rabbis were not European intellectual in that era. They were not theologians, they did not go to seminary they didn't shit shit about modern theology because they were ghettoized. they just stayed in their own little Jewish world.

Their view of what Spinoza was doing was extremely ignorant because he was much more sophisticated than they were.

Look at how the Christian God is described in pastors' sermons and catechisms and the like.

You are judging by fundie churches.

Look in the Bible. Does anyone ridicule the idea of God having a personality as some silly pagan idolatrous idea?

that assumes inerrency doesn't it? liberals don't particularly care about that do they? Process guys don't.t hey don't give damn about the Bible. So since liberals don't really care about that they don't mind contradicting the bible do they?

Also, how the theologians themselves have long described that entity, as having persons and wills.

That aside, Metacrock, I don't think that you appreciate what a great heresy an impersonal God is. Think of it. A "God" with as much personality as a rock or the force of gravity. Yes, think of it. Think very hard about it.

this is it's important to know something about theoloy. It'sn ot just a game where I you don't know anyting, you you say it back. you reallyk don't know anything about it.

You have no training. you have never read any theology and you so unintellectual that after telling you this a hundred times you still have not read any. If you had any any intellectual nature at all you would least be curious enough to read some.

this means you don't know about process theology. It's the mos widely studied and believed liberal version of theism there is. Its' the mayor liberal view you don't' even know that it centers around an impersonal view of God.

you don't know that because you don't study. You have no authority to tell me, (who has a Masters degree in theology) what to think about the nature of a subject that I am qualified as an academic to teach and you are not!

Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jewish community and vilified as an atheist. Why did that happen, O great expert on the history of ideas? If every theologian agreed with him, why didn't he become Grand Rabbi or something?

Because, Jews were excluded from the intellectual life of Europe in his day. Rabbis were not European intellectual in that era. They were not theologians, they did not go to seminary they didn't shit shit about modern theology because they were ghettoized. they just stayed in their own little Jewish world.

Their view of what Spinoza was doing was extremely ignorant because he was much more sophisticated than they were.

Look at how the Christian God is described in pastors' sermons and catechisms and the like.

Look in the Bible. Does anyone ridicule the idea of God having a personality as some silly pagan idolatrous idea?

that assumes inerrency doesn't it? liberals don't particularly care about that do they? Process guys don't.t hey don't give damn about the Bible. So since liberals don't really care about that they don't mind contradicting the bible do they?

Also, how the theologians themselves have long described that entity, as having persons and wills.

No process theologians. Not modern liberal theologians.

If a theologian had claimed what Spinoza and Einstein had claimed, he could have gotten burned at the stake over much of the history of Christianity.

(1) totally irelivant. We don't decide the truth of theology by wather or not people can be burned at the stake.

(2) you are obviously not talking about liberals. Liberals wouldn't do that.

(3) you are talking about a long time ago before liberal theology came into being.

(4) you are speaking out of ignorance because it's bs. If a theologian said that God was the forms in a certain place at a cert time say Scotland of the 8th century he would have been in trouble at all.

Sir Isaac Newton was lucky to be living not long after burning heretics at the stake had gone out of style, because he could have gotten burned at the stake for denying the Trinity.

show me some documentation that proves that? The only example of anyone being burned for not being a Trinitian was in Calvin's Geneva Certainly not in England. why are you so ignorance? Hummm I mean I kick your ass over and over because you just don't study you still makes the outrageously ignorant statements.

None of the Unitarians, Sococinians or other hertical non Trinitairians in England got burned at the steak.

So from the Argument from Popularity, which you are so fond of using against atheism, an impersonal God loses VERY badly.

atheists argue from popularity. you want to inflate your figures on how many there are. But you are not intelligent enough to understand the logical use of majority in the formation of culture.

that's why you can't understand the argument form culture.

If a theologian had claimed what Spinoza and Einstein had claimed, he could have gotten burned at the stake over much of the history of Christianity.

(1) totally irelivant. We don't decide the truth of theology by wather or not people can be burned at the stake.

(2) you are obviously not talking about liberals. Liberals wouldn't do that.

(3) you are talking about a long time ago before liberal theology came into being.

(4) you are speaking out of ignorance because it's bs. If a theologian said that God was the forms in a certain place at a cert time say Scotland of the 8th century he would have been in trouble at all.

Sir Isaac Newton was lucky to be living not long after burning heretics at the stake had gone out of style, because he could have gotten burned at the stake for denying the Trinity.

show me some documentation that proves that? The only example of anyone being burned for not being a Trinitian was in Calvin's Geneva Certainly not in England. why are you so ignorance? Hummm I mean I kick your ass over and over because you just don't study you still makes the outrageously ignorant statements.

None of the Unitarians, Sococinians or other hertical non Trinitairians in England got burned at the steak.

So from the Argument from Popularity, which you are so fond of using against atheism, an impersonal God loses VERY badly.

atheists argue from popularity. you want to inflate your figures on how many there are. But you are not intelligent enough to understand the logical use of majority in the formation of culture.

I think it would be importatnt to also post the actual numbers. The Pew Research Study is a popular one with Atheists, but when you look at the actual numbers, you see that the difference is only 5 points, which in IQ is negligible. Atheists seldom actually read the studies they post. Therefore, they blindly assume that if religious believers had an average IQ of 115, and non-believers were to average out to 120, that somehow means Atheists are all Einstein compared to believers, who are now relegated to being drooling morons.Too funny!

That's a good point. I don't have time to collect all the data to make the numbers available. they wouldn't read them if we did. I've made my bibliography on the religious experienced studies known for yeas they still have not read one study. they act like their helpless to get inter library loan. telling them to get inerlibrary loan is like telling them to cross the alps barefoot.

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